In the garment industry, it is often necessary to joining fabric panels together by stitching using a sewing machine. For instance, the manufacture of brassieres commonly requires providing breast cups, each of which is usually formed by sewing two fabric panels together along their outer peripheries, where one of the panels will become the outer layer and the other will become the inner layer of the finished breast cup. These two fabric panels require a common seam to produce a desired contour for the cup. By sewing these two fabric panels together along their outer peripheries, a double-layered support cup for a brassiere may be formed. The inner layer is typically in the form of a cup-shaped pad made of a fabric selected for its comfort, whereas the outer layer is decorative and may be made of a fabric having a pleasing outer appearance, such as lace.
However, when the outer peripheries of the two fabric panels are sewed together, bulky and prominent seam allowances are formed along the outer peripheries. These bulky and prominent seam allowances of the breast cups can be uncomfortable and aesthetically undesirable. Hence, it is desirable to produce garment articles that are comfortable and aesthetically desirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,805,610 discloses a brassiere that incorporates seamless breast cups featuring a negligible amount of stitching joining various sections of the brassiere together. This patent also discloses a method of manufacturing a brassiere featuring the steps of laminating a first sheet of molded foam material and a second coextensive sheet of foam material directly to each other, and affixing two molded flexible breast cups to a chest band core. However, different molds are necessary to manufacture breast cups of different shapes. This substantially increases the manufacturing costs. Therefore, there is a need to provide an improved method for manufacturing a breast cup of a brassiere that offers reduced cost and simplicity, as well as flexibility.